Class of September 29, 2008

1. Audience
The audience is an agency that we are supposed to be writing to -- In my case, the company that provides research funding for dentistry is mostly the American Dental Association (ADA) and Delta Dental Group.

2. Outline
- Background
- Abstract
- Objectives
- Justification
- Project design
- Scope
- Expected outcomes
- Limitations
- Justification for outcomes
- Conclusion

3. Connecting sentence (may require change and integration of site visits, etc)
I am still confused about the connecting sentence but as I get a scope of it I will edit this post to contain it.

Literature Review

Looking at my literature review in class, I think that it is more of an illustrating forwarding of a text. The reason I think it is illustrating is because I already know information about the field and I've been involved in it. I "look to other texts for examples of a point I want to make" in order for their examples to extend upon my knowledge and ideas.

Hiatus

Sorry for the long time in between posts lately, I have been busy studying for several exams...the part I do not like about college. However, the library today was a good change of pace. I'm starting to like research because with the Addison tool it is so easy to find whatever you want. And with one click, you can request a book from across the country -- which I have no idea why they call ILLiad when its just inter-library-loan...maybe they wanted it to sound cooler and bring Homer into it? I don't know...oh Virginia Tech librarians...

Research Proposals

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/s9808690/newprop.pdf

Very long, but detailed and intricate. A little too long to read, but there are sections like vocabulary, etc.

On the complete other side, heres a very short one thats to the point and you know what the experiment was about in a couple seconds.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/291/16/1987

Google Scholar is a very good way to search for these types of documents.

First exam

Is tomorrow! Chemistry right after English.

Interview

For my interview, I'm going to be talking to a couple different people. The first set comes from the Dental Club of Virginia Tech, second is a dentist that works at the NRV Clinic, third is the coordinator of the NRV Clinic's relationship with Tech students, and finally a dentist back home.

So far I've talked to the dentist back home over the phone (face to face interview is still pending) and I've talked to the Dental Club students -- both leaders and members. What I want to know is why people like the field of dentistry and whether that relates to my reason. I think it would be a good angle on my project if I were to put student responses in my paper as well as professional.

New Music

New songs I've been listening to:

TI's new album - PaperTrail
TI - Swagga Like Us
Duffy - Mercy
Kevin Rudolph - Let It Rock (Feat. Lil Wayne)
Mickey Avalon - My Dick (Funny One)

More Coming Soon...

Short One

Go Hokies! and Redskins!

Course Goals

1) I want to be more specific in my writing. Specificity is the key to a good paper; hopefully research will help me accomplish this task.

2) I want to be more stringent with managing my time, with the course already planned out and due dates already set, this is already helping me accomplish this goal.

3) I want to become more organized in my school work. Things like Google Reader and the 3-week outlines really help me do this.

4) I know that this course may not be verbal communication but I would love to improve upon my communication skills and learn how to effectively get my point across to a large group of people with minimal effort.

Dentist Questions

1) When and where did you attend dental school?

2) What influenced you to become a dentist?

3) What is the hardest part of your job?

4) People say dentistry is 40% business and 60% medicine, would you think this statement proves to be true?

5) If you were to tell me one thing I should know about dentistry right now that you wish you knew in the past, what should I know?

6) What makes a good dental office collaboration?

7) What was the worst dental case you have seen and how did you approach it?

8) What did dental school leave out that you constantly run into in your daily work?

9) What classes should I take that may come to use in the future for this work?

10) How often do you brush and floss your teeth?

11) Is it true that flossing adds years to your life?

Black Holes? End of the Universe? Check it out.

The LHC

Pandora Radio

I'M A GEEK!!!!

It wasn't too long ago when cool kids got all the attention. Zach Morris was smashing Kelly, Lisa, and made Jesse a stripper. Ferris Beuler took the day off. It used to be cool to be cool.

Now...hahah its just funny to think about. GEEKS RULE THE EARTH!!

You know...those geeky kids that sit in the front of class, raise their hands all the time, and ate glue during recess. Got picked last in all the games, and played Oregon Trail ALL THE TIME.

Well that kid liked Oregon Trail so much that he started making his own computer programs, and made SEVENTY BILLION DOLLARS -- Bill Gates, he would be the Geek-in-Chief.

Or those other two kids, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. While everyone else was getting laid in college and playing beer pong and running around, they stayed at home and played math games and actually took the time and figured out what algorithms were, now THEY OWN GOOGLE, with a 24 BILLION DOLLAR NET WORTH.

Or the Geekiest kid of all, the one who made us all losers. Mark Zuckerberg the undergrad computer programmer who spent days and nights wondering how to be popular, and have his face seen around campus because no one knew his name. But now we all know Facebook, and he knows what its like to be worth 3 BILLION DOLLARS.

I don't know about you guys but I'm definitely going to be a geek in college.

Are A Girl's Best Friend; Are Forever; Lucy in the Sky with; With A In The Back

The day was coming to a close at the Alexandria office. Dr. Kam, 31, asks Jocelyn and Genet to give him the reports. The lights slowly started turning off, except for one of the Operating rooms in the back. The girls (Genet and Jocelyn, including the hygienists and assistants) all leave soon after one another. The office is empty except for me and the doctor. From what I thought, Jocelyn had forgotten to turn off room three’s lights so I went back there to flick the switch and to my surprise I saw a tray of instruments laying there; the room was set up for one more patient. I quickly turned around and went to Kam’s office where I asked him why room three was set up. He then told me we had one more patient to take care of. I brushed it off, and continued doing my chores around the office like setting up the new computers and organizing files. After about six months in an office, some things become routine, but today things went out of the usual cycle.

After finishing his papers, Kam came around and told me to put my goggles, mask, and jacket on. Mohammed was here. At first glance he looked like any other person; but after examining him for a second as he passed me by going towards the operating room, his right arm looked quite white as compared to his very dark left arm. His pinstripe, button-up-shirt read Cadillac on a patch over his heart with his name written below. As Kam was preparing the materials for the procedure, I sat there patiently waiting for him to tell me what to do. As I looked even closer at Mohammed, I realized that his right hand was actually a prosthetic. Even closer I looked at Mohammed and things started coming together.

His English accent was poor; it seemed as if he had just come to America within the past couple of years. As Kam started applying the Novocain to Mohammed’s mouth, I handed Mohammed a pair of goggles to put on. For some odd reason the goggles would not stay straight on his face, they were leaning up and becoming crooked every time we adjusted them. We moved on. After waiting a couple minutes for the numbness to settle in, Mohammed opened wide and flashed his, ‘pearly whites.’ Although not so pearly, we began to drill on tooth number three, Mohammed had a large cavity that had to be removed, otherwise it would hit the root ending and he would require a root canal. Dr. Kam all of a sudden handed me the drill after fully informing me of the situation – introducing me as Dr. Kayvan also helped the circumstances. I only allowed myself to drill the tooth for less than ten seconds before I took my foot off the pedal and handed the drill back to the doctor. He continued the operation and successfully removed the entirety of the caries that were in his mouth. I was still wondering, though, how this man had no hand or ear.

After the procedure was done, Mohammed got up and thanked the doctor very earnestly. He left the office without signing anything or looking at any papers. I then asked the doctor who this mystery man was. He told me the story. Mohammed came from Sierra Leone, Africa a couple years ago. He had nothing with him, no money, no family, and no luck. He was taken upon Dr. Kam as a charity patient because Mohammed had no money to pay for any of the tens of thousands of dollars of mouth work needed.

Mohammed is a part of every one of us. Every time we go into the mall he is in those stores that are conveniently located on almost every corner next to department stores. He is part of your family, part of any awards show, and part of any special event. He was a blood diamond worker in Africa for his whole life – they cut of his hand and his ear because of the line of work he was involved in. I bet he’s part of at least one of us. Now tell me, next time you see a diamond, will you think of Mohammed? I will.

Financial Giants Taken Over

Interesting article for anyone that's following the financial world:

Click here.

Friday's Class

Truth is what you want it to be. As for me, truth encompasses only those facts that are written and widely accepted -- yet this brings up something much larger than truth -- Religion. How does a person believe something that happened over 2000 years ago and the only thing that took account of it is a single book. Who knows. But going back to truth -- if a tree falls in a forest miles away and there is no one to hear it fall, does it make a sound? Different people will have different answers to the same question which just ends up making everything more complicated than it should be. Our group was fairly uniform in our answers and we basically all thought of the same things for the questions answered in class. As the class goes on, however, I believe we will soon learn that not all of us will agree and it is then where the truth will be uncovered.

Politics? Maybe?

Hey just to let you all know: I'm not political at all and not affiliated with any political parties, or haven't been more than slightly interested in government class. However:

Is it just me or does Obama-Biden sound a lot like Osama Bin Laden?

- Doesn't someone get paid to think of these things before hand?

Is it just me or is Sarah Palin hot?

It it just me or does McCain remind you of Darth Vader (especially when he was dying and they opened his suit up)?

Is it just me or does Obama and McCain both have extremely large heads?

Is it just me or is the GOP full of HOT girls? (Including McCain's wife, daughter, and the Bush's)

Is it just me or did the democratic convention have a lot of random gay guys?

Is it just me or no matter who wins in the election in November, my country Iran is in trouble?

- courtesy of a half black-half persian man of valor

Official

So my official topic for my research project is going to be my experience at dental offices, more specifically my future experience that I'm going to be doing at the NV Dental Clinic? in Blacksburg. This is going to be interesting...when I think of this free clinic in Blacksburg, being from NOVA, I imagine farmers with no teeth and rotting gums because of chewing tobacco. Is that what everyone else imagines? Haha

Lost my notebook

Oh great...I lost something else. I'm one of those people who tends to forget things EVERYWHERE. Anywhere I go I have to leave something and today I just now realized I left my notebook with everything in it, in Chemistry Lab. Now I have to run there and look around for my little red notebook. Wish me luck.

Math Empo

So I'm sitting in the Math Empo right now and just finished another agonizing six question quiz on elementary calculus. I have taken Calculus before in high school and some of the questions were just too simple to be solved the way the lesson taught us...when I asked my teacher if I was allowed to take the derivative of the problem instead of finding the limit she started yelling at me how I was not following the rules. I then replyed back with a 'Thank you' while she was mid sentence and she continued to yell. Another day in the life of Kayvan...